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Driving on Square Tires

I was brought back to my childhood with that expression as we prepared to drive
home after New Year’s Day.
Never heard that expression before? Read on…

It was January 2nd and we had all our stuff packed up and ready for the drive
home. I got dressed and went out to try to start the car. It was -37 (-48 with
wind factored in, but who cares about wind) when I got up and now the guy on
the radio said the temperature had risen was a balmy -33.
The car sarted, and as we loaded up my sister-in-law said jokingly, “You’ll
be driving home on square tires today.”

As a youngster growing up in Northern Ontario I had heard this expression many
times from family, friends, neighbours and co-workers. It refers to the car
tires having an icy bottom from freezing to the ground below. That ice spot
creates a thumping noise as the tires rotate. It is almost as if your tires are
no longer round, having one flat edge.
I cannot say I noticed any extra noise but the driveway and roads were all
snow covered. There was no even pavement for the first several minutes of
driving. After that I guess any ice had worked its way off the tires as there
was no thumping.

Car, tires, my bride and I made the 300 Km drive without undue noise or incident.

4 thoughts on “Driving on Square Tires”

The thing about colloquialisms is that you tend not to know that they’re only local sayings until you go elsewhere. When I moved to the area of the country where Kim comes from, I’d never heard a packed lunch called a “pack up” before and yet it’s very common there. To me that meant to quit or finish something.

I’ve been told my combination of Irish heritage and moving around the country for work has left me with some unique ways to turn a phrase but couldn’t tell you any of them off the top of my head.

Quite right. I always “pack up” my luggage before I go somewhere also. I guess it could be stretched to accommodate packing a lunch.
Also those unique turns of phrase never come up when you try to remember them. They somehow have a way of just coming out at the appropriate moment without any conscious effort.